Stress Management Best Practice: Tips and Checklists

Stress Management Best Practice Checklist Tool for Line ManagersThis simple stress management checklist tool for managers can be used by managers and those who support them. It's designed to help identify current gaps in managers' stress management awareness, skills and behaviours. Development Interventions such as management development and coaching can help plug these gaps, thereby minimizing risk and moving the organization towards best practice in managing stress at work.

The checklist has been divided into four key areas:

Awareness – questions highlighting the level of management awareness about work-related stress and the associated risks

Preventing stress – questions related to management actions, skills and behaviours known to help prevent stress at work

Monitoring stress – questions related to actions that enable early identification of stress problems at work

Responding to stress problems – questions related to how managers respond once stress problems have been identified

There are two versions of the tool. The first is the one you would mainly use as a checklist/questionnaire. The second has the questions mapped to HSE's Management Standards. These Standards relate to known risk-factors for work-related stress and provide guidance on the assessment and management of such risks. In the second version of the tool, I have 'mapped' each question to either the Standards as a whole, marked HSE-MS, or the individual stress risk categories that best apply (where relevant). If you wish to find out more about the Management Standards, please check out the relevant pages on HSE's website.

Below, we've divided and summarised stress management best practice into a number of linked areas. The content below will help highlight potential gaps in the way your organisation deals with stress at work.

The stress management best practice areas are:

Stress Policies

Stress Risk Assessment

Stress Management Training

Stress Management Support structures

Stress Policies Best PracticeIt's good practice for employers to have a clear and well-publicised policy on managing stress that states how stress risks will be managed in the organisation and what support is available to employees experiencing stress problems. This includes both the management, and especially prevention, of work-related stress, and organisational responsiveness to non-work stress issues.

Although an employer isn't directly responsible for non-work stressors, an employee's well-being and performance at work is, of course, indirectly affected. Good employers are usually those that achieve the best balance between implementing strategies for preventing stress at work and responsiveness to personal domestic crises. Two linked issues are organisational flexibility and trust. Where line managers and employees feel supported by the organisation but also trusted to come up with effective, local solutions to stress problems. This usually leads to the best outcomes.

A key thing to remember about a stress policy is that it should be action oriented. It should be clear, simple and reasonably succinct. Managers and staff (and sometimes contractors) need to be aware of the policy and what it means for their practice.

Because of their key role in identifying, preventing and managing stress, line managers usually require training in order to successfully implement a stress policy. Such training raises their awareness, but also can highlight processes, skills and behaviours necessary for effective stress management.

Best practice questions on stress policies:

Does your organisation have a stress policy? Have you ever seen/read it?

Is the policy clear about the employer's responsibilities for managing foreseeable risks to employee health and well-being from work-related stress?

If you are a manager, are you clear about the steps you should take to prevent and reduce stress at work? If someone you manage experiences stress problems, do you know what to do to provide support and minimise future risks?

Does your organisation have support structures that employees can access confidentially such as Occupational Health or Counselling?

If you are an employee, are you clear about what to do if you experience stress problems? Do you know what support is available and how to access that support? Are you clear about the responsibilities you have to yourself, colleagues and your employer with regard to managing stress at work?

Do you know what's in the policy and how that applies to you?

Stress Risk Assessment Best Practice(Please see our stress tools page where you can find free tools for carrying out stress risk assessments. If you're looking for tools to assess broader dimensions of workplace wellbeing, please see our page on QoWL tools for assessing Quality of Working Life.)

All employers should be carrying out stress risk assessments. The duty to carry out risk assessments is a legal obligation in the UK, Europe and in most developed countries around the world. As stress has become the most important occupational health and safety hazard and the biggest cause of sickness absence in many types of organization, every employer should definitely be assessing the risks. There are various aspects to this:

Firstly, the employer should be assessing stress risks across the whole organisation. The UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) recommends that employers use a framework for stress risk assessments called the Management Standards and have provided a free tool that employers can use for the purpose. This is typically done using an anonymous stress risk assessment survey, so that all employees have the chance to take part. If all employees are not adequately consulted, the risk assessment may not be regarded as suitable and sufficient by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE). It's important that they use something like this is as they should be assessing all the different kinds of stress problems that occur.

Although there are free tools available that you can use internally, stress surveys are often carried out by external consultants such as psychologists and there are good reasons for this. The most important reasons relate to anonymity and confidentiality, trust, independence, and perhaps surprisingly, cost.

The simple truth about surveys is that if people feel their confidentiality is compromised and they might be identified as an individual, this influences the way they answer the questions. That in turn harms the validity of the results and any conclusions drawn from them. Internally conducted surveys are often distrusted by employees who may be cynical about the motives of managers or the employer. External consultants, if they have the right background, tools and proven expertise, are more likely to be perceived as having genuine independence. This improves levels of trust about the survey and therefore increases the validity of the results. Both employees and managers are much more likely to accept the conclusions reached by the consultants. Finally, using consultants for stress surveys can be more cost-effective. They have access to proven tools and technology and their project management experience can save a huge amount of management time.

If you would like to access external expertise and support with your stress risk assessment or survey, please contact us.

The stress risk assessment is much more than simply the survey. The employer should also using the survey to benchmark their stress management performance, and acting on the results in order to make improvements that will reduce the risk of stress, both organisationally and locally e.g. in departments. Changes made need to be evaluated and reviewed.

Stress risk assessment best practice questions:

Have you carried out a stress risk assessment?

If you plan to use consultants, do they have the appropriate tools, technology, expertise, experience and track record to do a good job?

Does your survey ask the right questions to cover all the main sources of work-related stress and will your risk assessment process be suitable and sufficient?

Have you asked everyone for their views?

Have you acted on the results in order to minimise the risks of stress?

Stress Management Training Best Practice(Please check out our best practice checklist tool towards the top of this page. It's specifically designed to help you identify stress management training needs in your management population. This tool and others can also be found on our 10 Best Stress Management Tools page.)

A second aspect of stress risk assessment that the employer should have in place are systems so that individual or team 'concerns' (stress problems) can be identified and dealt with in a timely manner. A lot of this comes down to the ways line managers deal with stress problems and whether they have the required skills and behaviours or 'stress management competencies'. A training intervention called: Preventing Stress: Promoting Positive Manager Behaviour has been developed to help managers make positive changes. If you wish to use this in your organisation, you should check out our forthcoming train-the-trainer events.

Managers need to be able to spot the early signs of stress, and be equipped with skills and tools for managing stress issues that do arise. Managers should also be taking steps to prevent stress where reasonably practicable.

This means that training and development for managers is vital in order to effectively implement policies for managing stress and/or well-being at work. Research has shown a combination of interventions is particularly effective in improving line managers' stress management performance. This involves 360 assessment on their stress management competencies, one-to-one feedback on the results of the assessment, and follow-up workshops to embed the learning from the process. Ongoing support for managers is also important to maintain improved performance.

Broader training for individuals to equip them boost stress management skills and enhance their resilience can also be very helpful. Improved resilience improves an individual's ability to manage day-to-day pressures and demands at work and in their personal life, reducing the risk that they will become 'stressed'. This helps minimise the risk of illness and poor performance in individuals and the associated costs of stress in the organisation.

If you need help with in-house training, including developing bespoke training and development interventions, please contact us.

Stress Management Support Structures Best PracticeA key aspect of organisational stress management is support for staff who experience stress problems, which may or may not be work-related. The means ensuring that the organisation has support structures in place for staff and that employees know how to access those support structures. Support is therefore integral to organisational policy on managing stress.

Good support structures are those that are:

Fit for purpose

Meet the support needs of staff

Cost-effective

Easily accessible and known to all staff, and

Help the organisation achieve its stress management policy aims.

Often a combination of internal and external supports (that staff can access in confidence) works best. There isn't one perfect way of providing support so what's best is influenced by the kind of organisation, the size of the organisation, resources, and what is available locally.

The most important internal support structure is the line manager who is an absolutely key support and therefore requires training for this role. Of course, there are sometimes reasons why an individual would not go to their manager for support (e.g. the manager is bullying the employee, or the issue is personal and the employee feels uncomfortable discussing it with their manager).

It is good practice therefore to have well-thought out, alternative routes for internal support. This might be a contact officer network, where the contact officers are trained individuals outside their immediate team structure that employees can go to in confidence help them deal with issues related to conflict, bullying or harassment. Of course, HR, Health & Safety, Occupational Health and Trade Union reps may all have important support roles depending on the way your organisation is structured. The key thing is to think through different support scenarios and make sure internal supports are there and up to the task.

There are usually options when it comes to providing external support structures. It's important to do good research on what is available locally. Often there is excellent support that can be accessed free of charge through local charities such as Mind and through NHS Health Promotion / Improvement departments. If at all possible, it's good to have something available where staff can access confidential counselling if/when they need it.

Of course, there are many commercial organisations providing a range of support services such as Employee Assistance Programmes and Occupational Health Services. It's important to shop around, not just to find the best price but to find the best fit for your staff needs and your organisational requirements. Good commercial providers should also be able to give you 'anonymised', general feedback, eserving individual confidentiality, on the kinds of issues people are presenting with. This preserves individual confidentiality but can provide highly valuable data to help you identify and address internal problems that are causing stress at work.

One key point about support structures - they only work if your managers and staff are aware of them. Perhaps your most important task is to have a truly effective communications strategy to ensure that all staff are aware of the support structures available and how to access them. This means:

Demonstrating commitment from the top of the organisation to stress management and staff well-being e.g. communications from the CEO to all staff about the importance of support

Including information on support structures in all induction processes

Being aware of the communications needs of particular staff groups who can miss out such as shift workers, cleaners and janitorail staff, lone and remote workers

Regular awareness-raising activities such as workshops, awareness days and away-days

Involvement and encouragement of line managers - make sure they know about the supports available and make sure they tell their team members about them

Regular auditing of supports to make sure they are being used and are effective

Ongoing consultation with staff about the support they need

Sometimes, certain groups of staff have particular support needs and these need to be taken into account. Shift work is often more demanding physically and psychologically than 9 to 5 and can place strain on family relationships, so shift workers are more at risk of stress-related problems.

Likewise if you employ lone or remote workers or there are jobs which have a significant element of lone or remote working, you need to take into account the increased risk of isolation. These workers often require additional support from managers and sometimes from external support providers.

Another group that can have additional support needs is staff who deal with the public or other non-employees (e.g. patients, customers, clients or contractors) on a regular basis. Such employees often experience much higher levels of bullying and harassment, which are severe risks to mental health and well-being. Therefore consideration should be given to the kinds of support that will help, such as appropriate training. It's also good practice to train managers who manage public-facing staff on how best to support those who regularly experience negative behaviours at work.If you would like help with developing a stress management programme that represents best practice, please contact us.